Bell pensions will be larger than first estimated

LOS ANGELES 
The supplemental pension plan designed by Bell's ousted administrator Robert Rizzo will provide dozens of city officials much larger retirement packages than previously estimated, The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

Rizzo's plan, paid for entirely by Bell's taxpayers, allows certain city employees and all City Council members to circumvent the state's retirement limits, the newspaper reported.

Over the past seven years, the City Council approved hikes in the retirement pay of 41 officials that could raise pensions about 85 percent.

The increases mean Rizzo could receive a pension of nearly $1 million a year, rather than the more than $600,000 previously estimated. Former Assistant City Administrator Angela Spaccia could receive more than $375,000 a year, compared with the previous estimate of $250,000.

Rizzo, Spaccia and six other former city officials are named in a felony complaint accusing them of misappropriation of public funds and other charges. They will be arraigned Oct. 21.

According to the Times report, Rizzo earned nearly $800,000 a year and Spaccia about $375,000, making them among the highest paid city officials in the state. But the supplemental pension plan also included rank-and-file workers who made more modest salaries.

Under the plan, an employee who worked in Bell for 25 years could retire at age 55 and still receive more than 90 percent of his or her final pay, according to records reviewed by the Times.

City Council members are guaranteed minimum payments of $2,000 a month if they retire as early as age 52 and had spent at least five years in office, on top of their normal payments from the state retirement fund.

"I don't think you'll find another city with that kind of benefit. There's no rationale for it," Dave Mora, West Coast regional director of the International City/County Management Association, told the newspaper.

James Spertus, Rizzo's attorney, told the Times that estimates of Rizzo's retirement payments were "grossly inaccurate."

Three years ago the City Council raised the city's "retirement tax" rate to cover rising pension costs. But last month, the state controller said the tax had been increased illegally and ordered Bell to roll it back and refund $2.9 million.

The supplemental pensions could impact Bell's finances for years to come, as the city struggles to pay the generous benefits packages without the tax revenues it expected to help defray the costs.

Currently, the supplemental pension costs Bell $600,000 to $650,000 a year. Even before the state deemed the retirement tax illegal, the city's overall retirement fund had been running at a deficit for the last seven years, reaching $1.2 million last year.